Verses 1–6
بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Compassionate
This sūrah speaks about revelation (waḥy) as a kind of speech from God to His prophets and messengers. This is stated in the contents of its opening: Thus does He reveal to you and to those who were before you, Allah, the All-mighty, the All-wise… and its conclusion: And it is not for any human that Allah should speak to him... (). Throughout the sūrah, the discourse returns to the theme of revelation time and again. At various points, God says:
And thus have We revealed to you an Arabic Qur’an…. ()
He has prescribed for you the religion which He had enjoined upon Noah…. ()
Allah it is Who revealed the Book with the truth and the balance…. ()
This is not to mention the sūrah’s repeated discussion of sustenance (rizq), as we shall discuss.
So revelation is this sūrah’s central concern. It also discusses the signs of Divine Unity (tawḥīd), the qualities of the faithful and the disbelievers, and what awaits each of them in their Resurrection and return to God. These are a second branch of discourse, but even these topics ultimately return to that of revelation in this sūrah.
The sūrah was revealed at Mecca, with the exception of And those who respond to their Lord… () until the third verse thereafter, and …Say: I do not ask of you any reward for it but love for my near relatives… () until the fourth verse thereafter. And these will be discussed below, God-willing.
Commentary
حم ١ عسق ٢
(42:1–2) Ḥā Mīm. ʿAyn Sīn Qāf.
These are some of the disconnected letters (al-ḥurūf al-muqaṭṭaʿah) which occur at the beginning of several sūrahs of the Qur’an. This phenomenon is one of the unique features of the Qur’anic text which cannot be found in any other revealed scripture.
Early and later exegetes have offered different explanations of them, and Ṭabrisī records eleven different opinions about their meaning in his Majmaʿ al-Bayān:
First: They are part of the metaphorical verses (mutashābihāt) whose knowledge God has kept for himself and no one knows their interpretation (taʾwīl) except Him.
Second: Each of them is a name for the sūrah at whose beginning they appear.
Third: They are names of the Qur’an as a whole.
Fourth: They signify God’s names. The combination alif lām mīm stands for: “I am God, the all-knowing.” The combination alif lām mīm rā stands for: “I am God, the all-knowing, the all-seeing.” The combination alif lām mīm ṣād stands for: “I am God, the all-knowing, the distinguisher (faṣl).” The combination kāf hā yā ʿayn ṣād can be broken down as follows: Kāf is from the All-Sufficing (al-Kāfī), hāʾ is from the Guide (al-Hādī), yāʾ is from the All-Wise (al-Ḥakīm), ʿayn is from the All-Knowing (al-ʿAlīm), and ṣād is from the All-Veracious (al-Ṣādiq). This opinion is narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās. And the letters derived from the various names in this way differ according to whence they were taken from; there are those taken from the beginning of the name, such as kāf from al-Kāfī; there are others taken from the middle of the name, such as yāʾ from al-Ḥakīm, and then there are those taken from the end of the name, such as mīm from al-ʿAlīm.
Fifth: They are names of God which have been separated; were people able to recombine them properly, they would have known God’s Greatest Name (ism allāh al-aʿẓam); for example, alif lām rā, ḥā mīm, and nūn together make al-Raḥmān, and so on. However, we are not able to combine them [properly]. This opinion is narrated from Saʿīd b. Jubayr.
Sixth: They are oaths sworn by God. So it is as though He is swearing by these letters that the Qur’an is His own speech, and that these letters are ennobled by the fact that they comprise His revealed scriptures, His Beautiful Names, and His Divine Attributes, and provide the foundations for all the different languages of mankind.
Seventh: They are allusions to God’s blessings, tribulations, and to the length that peoples shall reign—their durations and their appointed times.
Eighth: That they allude to the duration of this Nation (ummah) according to numerological calculations.
Ninth: They refer to all the letters of the alphabet, and mentioning only those which have been mentioned obviates the need to mention the remainder, just as one might use “ABC” to refer to the entire alphabet.
Tenth: They are there to silence the disbelievers. This is because the idolaters would advise one another not to listen to the Qur’an and hoot over it, as the Qur’an itself relates them saying: Do not listen to this Qur’an and hoot it down… (). Perhaps they would whistle, or clap or heckle to distract the Prophet when He was reciting it aloud. So then God sent down these disconnected letters and when the faithless heard them they were intrigued by their strangeness and wondered what they could mean. In this way, they were distracted from their plan [to disrupt the recitation] and the Qur’an could reach their ears.
Eleventh: They serve to enumerate the letters of the alphabet. By this, God means to say: “This Qur’an which you are incapable of equalling is composed of the very letters which you speak with every day; if you cannot vie with it, you should know it is from God.” These letters are only repeated in various places to demonstrate this fact. This opinion is narrated from Quṭrub, and is the preferred interpretation of Abū Muslim al-Isbahānī. A number of later commentators have also inclined towards it.
These are the eleven standard opinions. However, it is possible to construct yet another opinion from some of the material narrated in this regard. For example, it has been narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās about alif lām mīm that the alif stands for God, the lām for Gabriel, and the mīm for Muḥammad. Or, as has been narrated from others, that the disconnected letters that open the beginnings of these sūrahs allude to the goal made clear within them. For example, it is said that nūn refers to its sūrah containing tidings of victory promised to the Prophet. Qāf refers to the Qur’an or the divine might (al-qahr al-ilāhī) mentioned in the sūrah. Or, in yet another opinion, that these disconnected letters are to awaken people.
However, the truth is that there is something about these opinions that does not sit well in the heart.
As for the first opinion, we have already come across it in our discussion concerning the classification of verses into the categories of clear and ambiguous (al-muḥkam wa al-mutashābih) in the exegesis of , where it was one of the definitions offered for the “ambiguous verses.” We saw that clarity and ambiguity pertained to the semiotic understanding of the verse’s import and that interpretation (taʾwīl) does not refer to a semiotic analysis of the verses but rather to the actual realities that emerge from the contents of the Qur’an’s communications. This is something broader than being clear or ambiguous and, therefore, these disconnected letters cannot be the “ambiguous verses” (mutashābihāt) mentioned, nor are their meanings their “interpretations” (taʾwīlāt) of such verses.
As for the other ten opinions, these are theories that do not exceed the realm of mere possibility; there is no evidence to suggest that any one of them is accurate. However, there are some narrations attributed to the Prophet and the Imāms of the Prophet’s Household (ahl al-bayt) which appear to support the fourth, seventh, eighth, and tenth opinions, and we shall discuss their import in our study of the narrations below, God-willing.
It must not be forgotten that these disconnected letters are repeated in various sūrahs, numbering twenty nine in total, some of which begin with one letter (ṣād, qāf or nūn); others begin with two (ṭā hā, ṭā sīn, yā sīn, ḥā mīm); others still begin with three (two with alif lām mīm, one with alif lām rā, and one with ṭā sīn mīm); some begin with four (alif lām mīm ṣād, alif lām mīm rā); and some begin with five (as in the two sūrahs beginning kāf hā yā ʿayn ṣād and ḥā mīm ʿayn sīn qāf).
These disconnected letters also differ insofar as some only appear in one location (such as nūn), while others appear at the opening of several sūrahs (such as alif lām mīm, alif lām rā, ṭā sīn and ḥā mīm).
Now, when we look at the sūrahs that have these letters at their beginnings, we notice that when two sūrahs share the same letters, they also share a certain similarity in contents that is not found between them and other sūrahs. This is corroborated by the similar phrases found at the beginning of the sūrahs; for example, all the sūrahs beginning with hā mīm open with the statement The sending down of the Book is from God () or words to the same effect. Meanwhile, the sūrahs beginning with alif lām rā open with These are the signs of the Book () or a similar phrase. We see something like this happening at the beginnings of those sūrahs that open with ṭā sīn and again with those disconnected letters containing a mīm, which are usually followed by a statement denying that there is in doubt in the Book.
With this in mind, we can surmise that there is a special connection between the letters at the beginning of these sūrahs and the topics that they contain. This seems to be confirmed by Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, which begins with the letters alif lām mīm ṣād and whose contents combine the themes of those sūrahs beginning with mīm and Sūrat Ṣād. This also applies to Sūrat al-Raʿd, which opens with alif lām mīm rā and whose contents combine the themes of sūrahs beginning with alif lām mīm and those which open with alif lām rā.
The above suggests that these disconnected letters are a secret code between God and His Messenger, whose full meaning is hidden from us and which cannot be understood through mundane means beyond the extent that we sense there is a special connection between them and the contents of the sūrahs which they open.
Perhaps someone who reflects on the letters shared between various sūrahs and compares the meanings of the different sūrahs in which they appear can arrive at a more precise understanding of this phenomenon.
This could be the meaning of a tradition the Ahl al-Sunnah narrate from ʿAlī—reported in Majmaʿ al-Bayān—that every book has a quintessence (ṣafwah) and the quintessence of the Qur’an is the letters of the alphabet.
كَذَٰلِكَ يُوحِي إِلَيْكَ وَإِلَى الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ اللَّهُ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ ٣ لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۖ وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ ٤
(42:3–4) Thusly does He reveal to you and to those who were before you, God, the All-mighty, the All-wise. His is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, and He is the High, the Great.
As we said, the aim of this sūrah is to expound the nature of revelation by defining its essential reality and highlighting its goals and effects. So when God says Thusly… (kadhālika), he is referring to the phenomenon of revelation embodied in sending this sūrah to the Prophet. At the same time, He provides a general definition for revelation by comparing it to this particular instance, to which he refers directly and to which the Prophet himself is a witness. It is as if we wanted to explain the concept of a human being to someone by saying, “The human being is like Zayd.”
When God says to you and to those before you he means “to all of you.” But he uses this choice of words to show that revelation is a Divine Custom (sunnah ilāhiyyah) which has taken place throughout human history and is not a novel occurrence. In other words, he means to say, “O Prophets! The revelation which We send down to you, one prophet after another as a continuous custom of Ours, is just like the revelation which you clearly see in the sending down of this sūrah.”
Some commentators have read God’s saying thusly as referring not to revelation itself, but rather to its contents. This would mean God is actually referring to the teachings contained within the sūrah. On this basis, the commentators argue that the contents of this sūrah were part of the teachings that God revealed to all His Prophets, and this is where the commonality of revelation stems from. However, you will have noticed that this understanding does not accord with the general purpose of the sūrah or fit in with the tone of its verses.
…the All-mighty, the All-wise… His is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, and He is the High, the Great: These are five of God’s Beautiful Names (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā); when he says His is what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, this conveys the meaning of his Name, the Sovereign (al-mālik). This combination alludes to the fundamental reason for revelation and its being a continuous Divine Custom. Revelation conveys the Divine Religion which contains the guidance necessary for mankind to attain felicity in their lives in this world and Hereafter; no one can prevent God from sending revelation because He is Mighty (ʿazīz), meaning that nothing can forestall His will; He cannot ignore His servants’ need for guidance because He is Wise (ḥakīm), meaning perfect in action, and an action is only perfect if it brings about its desired outcome; God is entitled to administer his servants and their affairs however He wishes because He is their sovereign (mālik); He is entitled to demand their obedience to His commands and prohibitions because He is High (ʿalī) and Great (ʿaẓīm). As you can see, each of these five Names play a role in the existence of revelation and, taken together, they show that God is mankind’s guardian from every aspect. They have no guardian except him.
تَكَادُ السَّمَاوَاتُ يَتَفَطَّرْنَ مِنْ فَوْقِهِنَّ ۚ وَالْمَلَائِكَةُ يُسَبِّحُونَ بِحَمْدِ رَبِّهِمْ وَيَسْتَغْفِرُونَ لِمَنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ ۗ أَلَا إِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ ٥
(42:5) The heavens may almost rend asunder from above them, and the angels sing the praise of their Lord and ask forgiveness for those on earth; now surely God is the Forgiving, the Merciful.
“To rend asunder” (yatafaṭṭur) means to split apart. It is derived from the root f-ṭ-r, meaning “to split”.
Recall that these verses are set forth to expound the nature, purpose, and phenomenon of revelation. With this in mind, their context and tone suggest that the reason the heavens may almost rend asunder from above them is the revelation descending through them from God, the High and Great, on its way to the earth. God is the origin of this revelation, the heavens are the paths it takes, and the earth is its destination. As God has said elsewhere: And certainly We made above you seven paths (ṭarāʾiq); and never are We heedless of creation ().
The reason God says that the heavens “rend asunder from above them” is clear; revelation descends upon the heavens from above, from the presence of He who possesses absolute Highness and absolute Greatness. So if the heavens were to rupture, it would naturally be from above.
This exalts and magnifies the status of revelation, for it is the speech of the Highest and Greatest One. It is because this speech is imbued with such magnificence that the heavens themselves are about to split open as it passes through them. And because this speech is descending from the Most High, if they were to split open, it could only be from above.
So this verse magnifies the status of the Divine Speech with regards to its descent and passage through the heavens. And we find similar language and imagery throughout the Qur’an. For example:
…until when fear shall be removed from their hearts, They shall say: What is it that your Lord said? They shall say: The truth. And He is the Most High, the Great (). This verse magnifies the Divine Speech with regards to the angels of the heavens receiving it.
Had We sent down this Qur’an on a mountain, you would certainly have seen it falling down, splitting asunder because of the fear of God (). This verse magnifies the Revelation by supposing it had been sent down upon the mountains.
And Surely We will make to light upon you a weighty Word (). This verse magnifies it by describing the burden and difficulty of carrying it.
Some commentators have suggested one of two other meanings to this verse:
First: That it means they almost rend asunder because of God’s greatness and magnificence, as might be suggested by the verse immediately beforehand describing God as the High and the Great.
Second: That it means the heavens almost rend asunder because of the polytheism (shirk) of the idolaters upon the earth and their claim The All-Merciful has taken a son (), about which God says: The heavens may almost be rent thereat ().
However, under both of these interpretations it becomes difficult to explain why the heavens should be rent asunder from above, especially with regards to the second of the two. It is also difficult to explain how this relates to what comes next in the verse: …the angels sing the praise of their Lord and ask forgiveness for those on earth; now surely God is the Forgiving, the Merciful. And this is obvious to anyone who refers to the books of those who offer these alternate meanings.
…and the angels sing the praise of their Lord and ask forgiveness for those on earth: In other words, they declare him to be transcendent (tanzīh) above anything that does not befit the Divine Presence (al-ḥaḍrah al-ilāhiyyah) and extol the beauty of His actions. Something that does not befit the Divine Presence is that God should neglect the affairs of His servants, or leave them without the guidance of a religion promulgated by Him through revelation, which is one of His beautiful acts. The angels ask Him to forgive the inhabitants of the earth, but forgiveness can only be attained through attaining its means (sabab). And the means of attaining forgiveness is none other than walking upon the path of divine servanthood (ʿubūdiyyah) by following God’s guidance. So when the angels entreat Him to forgive mankind, His response to their supplications is to promulgate a religion to forgive whoever follows it. In other words, the angels ask God to reveal a religion to the inhabitants of the earth which they can follow in order to attain His forgiveness.
This reading finds support in the fact that this sentence occurs in the context of expounding the nature of Divine Revelation. It is also supported by the fact that the angels are asking forgiveness for the inhabitants of the earth. After all, it makes no sense for the angels to plead forgiveness indiscriminately for everyone upon the earth, even for those who say, God has taken a son, especially when God says of them: …and they plead for forgiveness for the faithful (). On this basis, we can see their pleading for forgiveness to mean that they are asking God to promulgate a religion for all the inhabitants of the earth, in order that those who follow it might be forgiven.
…now surely God is the Forgiving, the Merciful: God is endowed with the attributes of forgiveness and mercy, and He is given the names “the Forgiving” (al-ghafūr) and “the Merciful” (al-raḥīm). Therefore, it befits God to treat the inhabitants of the earth in such a way that they will obtain mercy and forgiveness from Him. And this means it befits Him to promulgate a religion through Divine Speech and revelation to guide them to felicity (saʿādah).
The words, now surely God… imply that He accepted the angels’ entreaties and that He will actually grant more than what they asked for in response.
وَالَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُوا مِنْ دُونِهِ أَوْلِيَاءَ اللَّهُ حَفِيظٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَمَا أَنْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ بِوَكِيلٍ ٦
(42:6) And those who take guardians besides Him, God watches over them, and you have no charge over them.
In the previous verse, we saw that God is the guardian of His servants and they have no guardian except Him. He looks after the affairs of whoever of them dwells upon the earth by providing them with a religion with which He is pleased by sending revelation to His prophets. This is due to His nature as expressed in His Beautiful Names and Divine Attributes. The logical corollary of this is that His servants should not take any guardians beside him. The present verse discusses the state of those who do just this by assigning partners to Him, whether in lordship (rubūbiyyah) or divinity (ulūhiyyah). It says He is neither heedless of what they do, nor are their deeds forgotten; they will be held to account for them. But the Prophet’s only duty is to convey his message; he is not their keeper and will not be questioned about their actions.
So when God says God watches over them, this means He keeps record of their idolatry (shirk) and the evil deeds that stem from it.
And when He says and you have no charge over them, He means you have not been made responsible for putting right their deeds or guiding them to the truth. This statement is meant to console and reassure the Prophet.
Examining Narrations
- In al-Durr al-Manthūr, it is related:
Abū Yāsir b. Akhṭab and a group of Jewish men passed by God’s Messenger while he was reciting the beginning of Sūrat al-Baqarah: Alif, lām, mīm. That is the Book… whereat his brother, Ḥuyayy b. Akhṭab, came to him in this group and said to them: “Do you know? By God, I have heard Muḥammad recite some of his revelation that says: Alif, lām, mīm. That is the book….”
They said: “You have heard it?”
He said: “Yes.”
So this group went walking to God’s Messenger and said to him: “O Muḥammad! Do you not mention that in your revelation you recite: Alif, lām, mīm. That is the book…?”
He replied: “I do.”
They said: “Gabriel brought you this from God?”
He said: “Yes.”
They said: “God has sent prophets before you, but we know of none to whom God made clear the duration of his reign nor the appointed time of his nation except you.”
Ḥuyayy b. Akhṭab said, stepping in front of those who he was with: “Alif is one, lām is thirty and mīm is forty. So this makes seventy-one years. Will you enter the religion of a prophet whose reign and his nation shall last no more than seventy-one years?!”
aThen he turned to God’s Messenger and asked: “O Muḥammad, is there anything else with this?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Alif, lām, mīm, ṣād.”
“This is longer and more momentous! Alif is one, lām is thirty, mīm is forty, and ṣād is ninety. That is one hundred and sixty years. Is there more?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Alif, lām, rā.”
“This is longer and more momentous still! Alif is one, lām is thirty, and rā is two hundred. So this is two hundred and thirty one years. Is there more?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Alif lām mīm rā.”
“This is even longer and more momentous! Alif is one, lām is thirty, mīm is forty and rā is two hundred. That makes two hundred and seventy-one!”
Then he said: “Your affair is confusing for us, Muḥammad; we do not know whether you have been given a little or a lot.”
Then they got up and Abū Yāsir said to his brother Ḥuyayy and the rabbis who were with him: “What do you know? Perhaps all of this has been given to Muḥammad: seventy-one, one hundred and sixty-one, two hundred and thirty-one… that makes seven hundred and thirty-four!”
They said: “His affair is unclear to us.”
On the basis of this tradition, they claim that the verse descended: He it is Who has revealed the Book to you; some of its verses are decisive. They are the basis of the Book, and others are ambiguous… ().
Author’s comments: A similar tradition is narrated by Ibn Mundhir from Ibn Jarīḥ, and one like it is related by Qummī in his Tafsīr from his father, from Ibn Riʾāb, from Muḥammad b. Qays, from Abū Jaʿfar. None of these traditions indicate that the Prophet approved of their claims, nor that they had a basis for them. And we have already seen that the ambiguous verses are not the disconnected letters at the beginning of various sūrahs.
- In Maʿānī, it is related via a chain from Juwayrī from Sufiyān al-Thawrī, who says:
I said to Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib [Imām al-Ṣādiq]: “O Son of God’s Messenger! What does it mean when God says: ‘alif, lām, mīm’, ‘alif, lām, mīm, ṣād’, ‘alif, lām, rā’, ‘alif, lām, mīm, rā’, ‘kaf, hā, yā, ʿayn, ṣād’, ‘ṭā, hā’, ‘ṭā, sīn’, ‘tā, sīn, mīm’, ‘yā, sīn’, ‘ṣād’, ‘ḥā, mīm’, ‘hā, mīm, ʿayn, sīn’, ‘qāf’ and ‘nūn’?”
He replied: “As for alif lām mīm at the opening of al-Baqarah, it means ‘I am God, the Sovereign (al-malik).’ As for alif lām mīm at the beginning of Āl-i ʿImrān, it means ‘I am God, the Glorious (al-majīd).’ Alif lām mīm ṣād means ‘I am God, the Almighty (al-muqtadir) and Veracious (al-ṣādiq).’ Alif lām rā means ‘I am God, the Kindest (al-raʾūf).’ Alif lām mīm rā means ‘I am God, the Giver of Life (al-muḥyi), the Causer of Death (al-mumīt), and the Sustainer (al-rāziq).’ Kāf hā yā ʿayn ṣād means ‘I am the All-Sufficient (al-kāfī), the Guide (al-hādī), the Guardian (al-walī), the Knowing (al-ʿālim), the Truthful in His promise (al-sādiq al-waʿd).’ As for ṭā hā, it is one of the Prophet’s names, and it means ‘O you who seek the truth and guide others towards it! The Qur’an was not sent down to you to grieve you but rather for you to attain felicity thereby!’
“As for ṭa sīn, this means ‘I am the Seeker (al-ṭālib) and the All-Hearing (al-samīʿ). Tā sīn mīm means ‘I am the Seeker, the All-Hearing, the Originator (al-mubdī) and the Returner (al-muʿīd).’ As for yā sīn, it is another one of the Prophet’s names and it means ‘O you who hears the revelation and the wise Qur’an, you are indeed one of the messengers upon the straight path!’
“Ṣād is a spring that bubbles up from beneath the Throne and it is in this spring that the Prophet performed his ablutions when he ascended on the Miʿrāj, and Gabriel enters it once every day, immersing himself in it before emerging and flapping his wings; there is not a drop that falls from his wings save that God creates an angel from it that glorifies God, sanctifies Him, magnifies Him, and praises Him until the Day of Resurrection.
“Ḥā mīm means the Praiseworthy and Glorious (al-ḥamīd al-majīd). Ḥā mīm ʿayn sīn qāf means the All-Clement (al-ḥalīm), the Rewarder (al-muthīb), the Knower (al-ʿālim), the All-Hearing (al-ṣamīʿ), the Mighty (al-qādir), and the Powerful (al-qawwī).
“Qāf is a mountain that surrounds the earth and gives the heavens their green hue. It is with this mountain that God prevents the earth from shaking with its inhabitants.
“Nūn is a river in Paradise to which God says: ‘Be solid!’ And it solidifies into ink, then God tells the Pen (al-qalam): ‘Write!’ So the Pen writes whatever was, is, and will be until the Day of Resurrection upon the Guarded Tablet. The Ink is an ink of light, the Pen is a pen of light, and the Tablet is a tablet of light.”
I said: “O Son of God’s Messenger! Explain to me fully the nature of the Tablet, the Pen and the Ink, and teach me that which God has taught you!”
He replied: “O Son of Saʿīd, were you not worthy of an answer, I would not have given one to you. Nūn is an angel that conveys to the Pen, which is an angel. The Pen conveys to the Tablet, which is an angel, and the Tablet to Raphael, Raphael to Michael, and Michael to Gabriel. Then Gabriel conveys it to the Prophets and Messengers—may God’s blessings be upon them all.” Then he said to me: “Now be gone, O Sufiyān, for I worry about you!”
Author’s comments: The apparent meaning of this narration suggests the common interpretation that the disconnected letters refer to the Divine Names and are actually letters taken from those names, whether from their beginning, like the mīm of al-Malik, al-Majīd, or al-Muqtadir, or from their middle, like the lām of Allāh, or from their end, like the yāʾ of walī. In this case, the disconnected letters are coded references to God’s Names. The same meaning has also been transmitted through Sunni chains of narration from Ibn ʿAbbās, Rabīʿ b. Anas and others. However, it should be obvious to the reader that coded communications are only used to convey something that the speaker only wants his intended recipient to understand, so he uses a code known only to them that no one else can decipher. But these Divine Names have been explicitly mentioned and explained, both in general and in detail, in many places throughout His speech. This means there is no point in referring to each of them in a code derived from their letters.
Therefore, the proper understanding of this narration—assuming that it is authentic—is that these letters signify these meanings [of the Divine Names] in an unconventional sense (dalālah ghayr waḍʿiyyah). In other words, they are symbols whose true meaning is unknown to us and hidden from us; they signify levels of meaning that are too exalted and sublime for us to comprehend. This is supported somewhat by the fact that the tradition offers several different meanings for the letter mīm in different situations. And the same is true concerning that which has been narrated about God’s Greatest Name (ism allāh al-aʿẓam).
As for his saying, “Qāf is a mountain that surrounds the earth and gives the heavens their green hue…”, we find a similar narration in Qummī’s Tafsīr. It is also found in Sunni narrations transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās and others. Some of these describe it as an emerald mountain that surrounds the world at the edge of the heavens, while others say that it is a mountain that surrounds the Ocean that surrounds the world, and the heavens hover upon it, and that there are seven earths, seven oceans, and seven heavens.
In one of the narrations from Ibn ʿAbbās, we read: “God created a mountain called Qāf which encompasses the world; its roots extend deep into the rock upon which the earth rests. When God desires to cause an earthquake in a village, he commands the mountain to move the root beneath that village, causing it to shake and tremble. This is how He quakes one village but not another.”
The tenor of these traditions resembles that of Isrāʾīliyyāt. And were it not for the phrase: “…It is with this mountain that God prevents the earth from shaking with its inhabitants”, it would have been possible to interpret the statement, “Qāf is a mountain that surrounds the earth and gives the heavens their green hue”, to mean the atmosphere that surrounds the earth with a little effort.
As for his saying that Ṭā Hā and Yā Sīn are names of the Prophet with the meanings given above, we should understand it on the basis of what we have said above, and interpret the many narrations from Sunni and Shiʿa sources saying that these are names of the Prophet in the same way.
Then he says that Nūn is a river God transformed into ink, and the Pen wrote everything that had happened and would happen until the Day of Resurrection upon the Tablet in this ink; and that the Ink, the Pen, and the Tablet are made of light, and that they are all angels. This statement confirms that whatever God has said about the Throne, the Seat, the Tablet, the Pen, and other such entities, and however these entities have been explained in the sayings of the Prophet and the Imāms, are all similitudes (tamthīl) which are used to approximate metaphysical realities—realities too sublime and exalted for most people to understand—in accessible sensible terms (maḥsūs).
- In Maʿānī also, Ṣadūq narrates a tradition with a chain going back to Abū Baṣīr, who relates that Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq] said:
Alif lām mīm is one letter (ḥarf) of the letters of God’s Greatest Name which are scattered throughout the Qur’an, which are combined [properly] by the Prophet and Imām, so that when they supplicate with them their supplication is answered….
Author’s comments: The idea that these disconnected letters are letters from God’s Greatest Name that have been scattered throughout the Qur’an is narrated through a number of Sunni chains of transmission, going back to Ibn ʿAbbās and others. However, it became clear in our discussion of God’s Beautiful Names (asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā) in Sūrat al-Aʿrāf that God’s Greatest Name which has its own special effectiveness is not something which you utter. So any tradition narrated to the effect that this Name is a word made up of uttered letters must be turned aside from its apparent meaning as best possible.
- Also in Maʿānī is a tradition from Muḥammad b. Ziyād and Muḥammad b. Sayyār from Imām al-ʿAskarī, in which he says:
The Jews and Quraysh have lied about the Qur’an when they say: “A clear case of sorcery (siḥr mubīn)!” God says: Alif lām mīm, that is the Book…; in other words: “O Muḥammad! This Book which We have sent down to you is made up of scattered letters, including alif, lām and mīm. [O people!] It is in your own language, made up of letters from your own alphabet, so bring the like thereof if you are truthful [in your claim that it is sorcery], and seek the help of all your witnesses to do that….”
Author’s comments: The tradition is from Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī, and it is weak (ḍaʿīf).
- And in Tafsīr al-Qummī and the narration of Abū al-Jārūd from Abū Jaʿfar [Imām al-Bāqir] concerning God’s words, the heavens may almost rend asunder from above them (), he says:
Meaning, they may almost crack (yataṣaddiʿna).
- And it is narrated in Jawāmiʿ al-Jāmīʿ about the verse and ask forgiveness for those on earth… that Imam al-Ṣādiq said:
Those on earth who are faithful (muʾminīn).
Author’s comments: A tradition to the same effect is narrated in Majmaʿ from him, and Qummī narrates it implicitly.
This alludes to the verse: He it is Who has revealed the Book to you; some of its verses are decisive (muḥkam). They are the basis of the Book, and others are metaphorical (mutashābih); then as for those in whose hearts there is perversity, they follow the part of it which is ambiguous, seeking to mislead and seeking to give it (their own) interpretation. but none knows its interpretation (taʾwīl) except God… (). [Trans.] ↩︎
Muḥkam was translated as “decisive” rather than “clear” in the English version of the exegesis of . Both renderings of muḥkam are acceptable. [Trans.] ↩︎
See, for example, This is the Book, there is no doubt in it, a guidance to the Godwary (). [Trans.] ↩︎
Note that “them” here is the feminine plural pronoun hunna, which refers to the heavens themselves. [Trans.] ↩︎
It is related by Ibn Isḥāq, as well as Bukhārī in his Tārīkh and Ibn Jarīr, a narration with a weak chain (sanad ḍaʿīf) from Ibn ʿAbbās, from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Rubāb. ↩︎
Teachings and sayings derived from Jewish and Christian sources [Trans.]. ↩︎
This shift in address is signified in the Arabic by a transition (iltifāt) from the second-person singular pronoun (ka) in “We have sent down to you” (anzalnā ʿalayk) to the second-person plural pronoun (kum) in “in your own language” (fī lughatikum), which indicates the speaker is no longer addressing the Prophet (an individual) but rather a group of people (a plurality). [Trans.] ↩︎